Re: Forthcoming Books
 

#PutinProbablyApproved

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

I enjoy some of Joshi's work, but the Lovecraft statue change backlash is the weird fiction equivalent of GamerGate or the Sad Puppies and threatens to throw his reputation down the toilet. Just embarrassing and childish. Everybody can see what this is. I'm sure Barron and VanderMeer will survive.

Not actually read any Joe Hill yet.

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

It could be argued that there's a certain elitism guiding Joshi's ranking, an elitism with romantic assumptions. The supposition is that the less known an author is the more quality work he or she is more likely to produce, or that there's some necessary correlation between suffering in obscurity and the production of true art.

My "hypothesis" is that the more people know about a particular author's body of work, the more likely their artistic status is to be judged negatively by a very small percentage of literary critics who fear that their aristocratic (exclusive) enjoyment of "high literature" is potentially threatened by an uneducated herd of working class people.

The two groups of people who really matter are readers and actual authors. Although the literary critic is in some cases capable of adding value to the production of literature in an academic sense, their role is ultimately superfluous. They're essentially a "leisure" class of individuals who maintain a parasitic relation to the two aforementioned groups of people.

*sigh*

On a more general note, I do wonder what it is that makes a literary critic's opinion more significant than the average reader's. The only reason I can think of is the fact that the critic has read more books associated with the genre in question than the average reader has, which means the critic has the capacity to engage in a comparative analysis of a particular story or book with respect to other stories or books inhabiting the same literary space. But why exactly is this internal estimation of a piece of literature (internal because the estimation occurs within the context of other works of literature) worth more than the average reader's. Why can't the "subjective" impression a work of literature has on the average reader be deemed just as worthy?

There is no justification for saying that the former is inherently more valuable than the latter. The criterion that says the critic's opinion is worth more is a construct created and sustained by a leisure class of people whose very existence is not justified.

I feel better now.

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

I think critics are important as curators (especially of the past that most people don't remember) and helping sharpen your perceptions of what you're reading.

Examples: I greatly value genre guides and I'm reading a fantastic one right now (I'll talk about it soon) that's adding further mountains to my shopping list.
Critics often point out flaws that I was not aware of or only dimly aware of and have helped me raise my standards and stop making excuses for so many things.

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I rate Joshi higher as a Lovecraft curator than I do a critic, as he's too biased over immature Lovecraft fandom drama stuff or appearing 'edgy' by being pointlessly mean for me to take him seriously as a critic. As I doubt many people will buy this, I'm not too bothered. Better to let it sink without a trace rather than add to any manufactured notoriety. The horror literature community have outgrown him.

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Maybe we've done this before but I want to ask if it was Joshi that popularized the term "weird fiction" over the past couple of decades? I think the Vandermeers probably had a big influence in broadening what was considered the genre boundaries but I dont think they were as invested in the horror side of it as Joshi was/is.

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Weird Tales, Lovecraft and Mieville popularised it. Joshi only has influence within the Lovecraft fan community. His greatest legacy will be in removing much of the Derleth or other apocryphal nonsense from the general view of Lovecraft's canon and being a proponent of old supernatural fiction writers, which means Lovecraft fanboys have read other things from pre-WW2. His opinions on 'modern' (the last few decades) horror fiction is largely off. Clive Barker and Stephen King are obviously better writers than many of the small press ones he raves about for six months.

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But isn't Joshi's influence extended by the Penguin editions? His interpretations are in them and perhaps he uses "weird" more than "horror" in the intros+notes?

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Lovecraft popularised it, while Miéville revived it during the period when Lovecraft was less popular than he is now. Joshi doesn't have that kind of reach outside of Lovecraft fandom.

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Stephen Jones is back at it with Mammoth Book Of Halloween Stories and Mammoth Book Of Nightmare Stories. I thought maybe he was slowing down or maybe stopping because apart from his Best New Horror series, a lot of his new books seemed to be repackaged anthologies.